1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is based on a pressure wave machine with a cell wheel which has a longitudinal axis and is supported by means of a bearing in a casing, one end face of which cell wheel interacting with a hot gas guidance casing by means of a first radially directed sealing gap and its other end face interacting with a gas guidance casing by means of a second radially directed sealing gap.
2. Discussion of Background
A pressure wave machine is known from the patent specification CH 378 595, this pressure wave machine exhibiting radially extending sealing gaps both between a hot gas guidance casing and a cell wheel and between a gas guidance casing and the cell wheel. This sealing gap must have sufficiently large dimensions to prevent the thermally expanding cell wheel, or its end faces, from rubbing on the hot gas or the gas guidance casings even after reaching the particular maximum operating temperature. In the cold condition, i.e. when the pressure wave machine is being run up, these sealing gaps are initially relatively wide so that a working medium, such as compressed hot gas or compressed air, escapes through these gaps - thus causing an undesirable reduction in performance at the beginning of the running-up phase. It is only in the warm condition, when the sealing gaps have become smaller, that working medium escapes to an unavoidable and consequently tolerable extent.